Film Based on D.C. Sniper Attacks Set For Online Release, Limited Theater Release

LANHAM, Md. (CBSDC) — “Blue Caprice” is the title of a new film that is bound to hit close to home for many residents of the D.C. region.

Named for the 1990 Chevrolet sedan that John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo used to cruise around the District, Maryland and Virginia shooting and killing at random in October 2002, the movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

It will have a limited release in theaters on Sept. 13 and will be available on iTunes Sept. 17. The film will begin screening Sept. 27 at both the West End Cinema in D.C. and AFI Silver Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Md.

Ten people were killed and three others were critically injured in covert sniper attacks carried out by the pair as far south as Ashland, Va. The bulk of the shootings occurred in Montgomery County, Md.

For 23 days, the region was on high-alert, many fearing that their neighborhood would be the next target. The terror ended on Oct. 24 when the pair were found asleep inside their car at a rest stop in Frederick County, Md.

The film focuses on Muhammad and Jamaica-born Malvo, played by Isaiah Washington (Grey’s Anatomy) and Tequan Richmond (General Hospital, Everybody Hates Chris), respectively.

The official movie website describes it as “a harrowing yet restrained psychological thriller about an abandoned boy lured to America into the shadows of a dangerous father figure.”

The synopsis says the film “documents the mechanisms that lead its subjects to embrace physical violence” and “paints a riveting portrait of 21st-century America and a haunting depiction of two cold-blooded killers.”

RottenTomatoes.com, a website that compiles film reviews, gives “Blue Caprice” a 94 percent rating so far with top critics from the New York Post and Variety magazine weighing in.

Other films based on the sniper attacks have been released, but this is the first big screen feature based on the events.

The real-life Muhammad was executed by lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va. on Nov. 10, 2009. He was 48.

Malvo is serving several life sentences without the possibility of parole. Since he was only 17 when the shootings occurred, his attorneys recently asked federal judges to vacate his sentences based on a 2012 Supreme Court decision blocking mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles.